Blog

Milestone 0.4.0 released!

We’ve been teasing you with some of the new features we’ve been working on, and now they are finally available to you!
We are happy to present to you Milestone Update 0.4.0, which includes 3rd person view, ghost data and much more! This milestone update introduced a lot of code that will pave the way for exciting updates in the future, including multiplayer. Stay tuned for more!

Changelist

Implemented 3rd person camera view (Bound by default to the “V” key on the keyboard.)

Animated propellers based on input.

Visuals for LED lights on frames. The color will be made configurable later.

First implementation of ghost functionality in Race mode. (See the Game Settings in the main menu to toggle this option on and off.)

Added more songs to the official Liftoff soundtrack

Slightly changed functionality of music player

Slightly changed how the center of gravity of the drone is calculated

Fixed minor bugs

3rd person view

This first iteration of the 3rd person camera view enables you to place the camera behind the drone. You can see your drone configuration in full glory and see the propellers react realistically to your remote input. You can enable 3rd person view at any time by pressing the “V” (View) button, or whatever you have set it to. We have currently implemented two different perspectives and plan to add more 3rd person camera settings in the future.

Sure all this looks nice, but what does it mean for Liftoff? We plan to have a spectator mode and a replay function that will make use of the new ghost functionality. Furthermore it is a fun feature for our community members who enjoy creating cool stunt and freestyle videos. Last but not least, creating a 3rd person view is 90% of the work we have to do to create a Line Of Sight mode. These two features share a lot of code and functionality. You can look forward to an LOS mode soon.

Ghost data

One of the biggest milestones is our work on ghost data. In Race mode, you can now see your flight data from your previous laps. A nice flight trail behind the drone makes it easy to see. This will help you to improve your time and to learn from your previous mistakes.

What’s exciting about this feature is that it works in very similar way to our multiplayer that’s in the works. With this feature, a lot of the basic multiplayer work is done behind the screens.

Music

In 0.3.6 we introduced our new music player feature that enables you to load your own music into the game. For 0.4.0 we’ve added some new songs to the official Liftoff soundtrack. These songs will now work as a playlist within the game. Songs can be skipped by pressing the radio button on the top right corner in the menu.